Being Less Stingy with Celebrating

Someone asked me what I love most about when the spring break teams come to visit. After two weeks of hearing story after story of how God became real and personal to students at UASD through interactions with the spring breakers, I was hit with the sensational reality of how cool my job is and how quickly I can forget that.

On Stint, we share our faith regularly, sometimes seeing students enter into a relationship with Christ and others not. It can be easy to focus on the overwhelming need for more people to know God or the imperfections of our ministry. However, I was woken up from my slumber when I heard one spring breaker share with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face how precious this week of telling others about Christ has been. She was able to see someone invite the Lord into their life for the first time and recounted the story to us with such wonder—you could tell that it was an experience she will not soon forget. She told us how this trip has opened her eyes to the joy that is to be had when we share the goodness of God with other people.

Claire celebrates what God has done by sharing her experience with us at the weekly meeting

To see this girl celebrating so joyfully just one person coming to know the Lord made me realize that I also need to recognize and celebrate what God is doing at UASD each day and trust Him through the upsets. I celebrate the fact that it’s so easy to have spiritual conversations with students on campus. I celebrate my relationship with my disciples and how God is their Rock. I celebrate it when our Vida students laugh and play together, growing in community. I celebrate the times when students tell me they want a relationship with Christ, but just aren’t ready to take the next step yet because it helps me pray more effectively for them.

Thank you Red River team for spending the week with us and loving Dominican students by telling them the best news ever, and for being a huge encouragement to me! I pray that this trip is just a paragraph in your story of adventures with God!